To the Editors ofNashe Slovo[4]

Written:9.2.1915Published:First published 1931 inLenin Miscellany XVII.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[197[4]],

      Moscow,Volume 21,

      pages125-128.Translated:Transcription\Markup:D. WaltersandR. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      2002

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Berne, 9.2.1915

DearComrades:

Inyour letter of February 6 you proposed to us a plan of struggle
    against “official social-patriotism”, in connection with the
    proposed London conference of socialists of the “allied
    countries” of the Triple
Entente.[5]As you have, of course, seen
    from our newspaperSotsial-Demokrat,we support that struggle in
    general, and are conducting it. That is why we are very glad to have
    received your message. and accept with pleasure your proposal for a
    discussion of a plan of joint action.

Theconference, which is said to have been planned for February 15 (we
    have not yet received a single document regarding it), will perhaps be
    postponed until February 25 or later [judging from a letter from Huysmans,
    who wrote of the sitting of the Executive Commission for February 20 and of
    the plan for personal talks between members (the Secretary) of the Executive
    Commission and socialists of France, Britain and Russia]. The conference may
    possibly be contemplated as one, not of official members of the
    International Socialist Bureau, but asprivatemeetings between
    individual “prominent” socialists.

Thatis why the contraposition to “official
    social-patriotism” of a “clear, revolutionary and
    internationalist” point of view, a contraposition which you write of
    and which has our full sympathy, should be preparedfor all possible
    contingencies(both for a conference of the official representatives of
    parties and for a private meeting in all its forms, both for February 15 and
    for any later date).

Forour part and in view of the desire you have expressed, we propose the
      following draft declaration, which contains such a contraposition (so that
      the declaration may be read and printed):

“Theundersigned representatives of the Social-Democratic
    organisations of Russia (Britain, etc.) proceed from the conviction:

“thatthe present war is, on the part, not only of Germany and
    Austro-Hungary, but of Britain and France (acting in alliance with tsarism),
    an imperialist war, i.e., a war of the epoch of the final stage in the
    development of capitalism, an epoch in which bourgeois states, with their
    national boundaries, have outlived themselves; a war aimed exclusively at
    the grabbing of colonies, the plundering of rival countries, and the
    weakening of the proletarian movement by setting the proletarians of one
    country against those of another.

“Consequentlyit is the absolute duty of the socialists of all
    belligerent countries immediately and resolutely to carry out the Basle
    resolution, viz.:

“(1)thebreak-up of all national blocs and theBurgfrteden[1]in all
    countries;

“(2)acall to the workers of all the belligerent countries to wage
    an energetic class struggle, both economic and political, against the
    bourgeoisie of their country, a bourgeoisie that is amassing unparalleled
    profits from war deliveries and makes use of the military authorities’
    backing so as to gag the workers and intensify oppression of the latter;

“(3)decisivecondemnation of any voting for war credits;

“(4)withdrawalfrom the bourgeois governments of Belgium and
    France, and recognition that entry into governments and voting for war
    credits are the same kind of treachery to the cause of socialism as is the
    entire behaviour of the German and Austrian Social-Democrats;

“(5)thatthe hand be stretched out to internationalist elements in
    German Social-Democracy that refuse to vote for war credits, and that an
    international committee be set up, together with them, for the conduct of
    agitation for the cessation of the war, not in the spirit of the pacifists,the Christians, and the petty-bourgeois democrats, but in inseparable
    connection with the propaganda and organisation of mass revolutionary action
    by the proletarians of each country, against the governments and the
    bourgeoisie of that country;

“(6)supportfor any attempts by the socialists of the belligerent
    countries to bring about contacts and fraternisation in the fighting forces
    and the trenches, despite the bans imposed by the military authorities of
    Britain, Germany, etc.;

“(7)acall to women socialists of the belligerent countries to
    intensify agitation in the direction indicated above;

“(8)acall for support by the entire world proletariat of the
    struggle against tsarism, and for support for those -Social-Democrats of
    Russia who have not only refused to vote for credits, but have shown
    disregard of the danger of persecution and are conducting socialist work in
    the spirit of internationalist and revolutionary SocialDemocracy.”

Asfor certain Social-Democratic men of letters in Russia who have come
    out in defence of the official social-patriotism (as, for instance,
    Plekhanov, Alexinsky, Maslov, and others), the undersigned disclaim all
    responsibility for any action or statements by them, energetically protest
    against the latter, and declare that, according to all available
    information, the Social-Democratic workers of Russia do not hold that point
    of view.

Itgoes without saying that Comrade Litvinov, our Central
    Committee’s official representative in the International Socialist
    Bureau (his
address[2]:

We are sending him your letter and a copy of
    our reply to you. Please address him directly on all urgent matters), as he
    has been authorised to use his own judgement in the matter of all particular
    amendments, special steps in negotiations, etc.; we can merely state ourcompletesolidarity with this comrade on all essential points.

Asfor the Organising Committee and the Bund, who are both represented in
    the International Socialist Bureau, we have grounds for apprehension that
    they stand for “official social-patriotism” (in its Francophile
    or Germanophile form, or in any other that would reconcile these two
    tendencies). At any rate we would appreciate your kindness in sending us
    both your reply (your amendments, your counter-draft of the resolution,
    etc.) and the reply of those organisations (the Organising Committee, the
    Bund, etc.) that you have already addressed or intend doing so.

Withcomradely greetings,

Myaddress
is:[3]

[1]classtruce.—Ed.

[2]M.M.Litvinov’s address is not given in the
    MS—Ed.

[3]Noaddress is given in the MS—Ed.

[4]NasheSlovo(Our Word)—a Menshevik daily published in Paris from
    January 1915 to September 1916, instead of the newspaper Gobs.

Lenin’sletter to the newspaper was written in
    reply to theNashe Slovoeditors’ proposal for joint action
    against social  patriotism, in connection with the forthcoming London
    conference of Entente Socialists. Lenin agreed to the proposal and submitted
    a draft declaration addressed to the London Conference. He criticised the
    social-chauvinist position of the Menshevik Organising Committee and the
    Bund, whom theNashe Slovoeditors had approached with the same
    proposal.Nashe Slovo’seditors did not accept Lenin’s
    declaration, but drew up one of their own.

Followingthe London Conference, theNashe Slovoeditors again proposed to the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. that a
    joint conference of “internationalists” be held so as to define
    the attitude towards the war and the social-chauvinists. In his reply to theNashe Slovoeditors dated March 10 (23), 1915 (see pp. 165-68 of
    this volume), Lenin laid down a number of fundamental conditions for a union
    of genuine internationalists. Since theNashe Slovoeditors came
    out in defence of the Organising Committee and the Bund, Lenin discontinued
    the talks.

NasheSlovo’s attempts at unification
    ended in an “ideological-political fiasco”, as Lenin put
    it. Lenin discussed this question in the following works published herein:
    “On the London Conference” (pp. 178-80), “The Question of
    the Unity of Internationalists”  (pp. 188-91), “The Collapse of
    Platonic Internationalism” (pp. 194-98), “The State of Affairs
    in Russian Social-Democracy” (pp.281-86) and “Socialism and
    War” (pp. 335-38).

[5]TheLondon
    Conference of Socialists of the “allied countries” of the Triple
    Entente met on February 14, 1915. Its delegates represented the
    social-chauvinists and the pacifist groups of the Socialist parties of
    Britain, France, Belgium, as well as the Russian Mensheviks and
    Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Thoughthe Bolsheviks were not invited to the Conference,
    Litvinov (Maximovich) presented to the Conference the declaration of the
    Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., which was based on Lenin’s
    draft. The declaration demanded the withdrawal of socialists from bourgeois
    governments and a complete rupture with the imperialists; it called for an
    end to co-operation with the imperialist governments, a resolute struggle
    against the latter, and condemnation of voting for war credits. The chairman
    interrupted Litvinov as he was reading the declaration, and deprived him of
    the right to speak. The latter handed the declaration over to the presidium
    and left the Conference hail.

SeeLenin’s articles “The London
    Conference” and “On the London Conference” (pp. 132-34,
    178-80 of this volume). p. 125